There is something about breaking your own heart while writing. I’ve put this modern Wiccad lass through some serious hell in the stories most of you have yet to read. So dealing with that pain in the writing can be a moving experience. It’s hard to be strong all the time and maybe one day she will realise that she doesn’t have to be. I should also just say there is a small trigger warning for past self-harm and suicide.

Opening the Wounds

Her right hand gripped her left wrist and her left hand was curled in a fist pressed against her face. She was taking deep breaths but it was doing little to ward off the growing panic.

She had not wanted to go down this road again, she was done with it, stronger than it. But evidently, she could still be triggered. It had not taken much, just a mention of a name and in that moment, she was transported to the scared and broken girl she had been. The girl who had tried to hurt herself.

Tried to end herself.

Tried to end the pain.

She could still see the faint white lines of the wounds that had once been gaping on her arm, and she could feel the shadow of the wounds that had once been gaping inside her.

No, she was stronger than this.

“Casey?” The knock on the door was tentative, the voice worried.

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Promise. Just need a moment.”

“Okay, I’ll be out here if you need me.”

“Thanks, Bree.”

Casey hardly deserved Bree’s kindness after how she had basically destroyed their friendship back then. It took a special kind of screw-up to destroy a relationship that was basically sisters not just BFFs. But Casey was a special kind of screw-up. Well, she had been. She was trying not to be now.

She was not a screw-up. She was strong. She could beat this panic. She could beat these feelings. But god how she wanted to have someone make it better, take away the pain. Dom, Bree, Xander, Trent, they could all help but no one could beat this but her.

She was strong enough, she had to be strong enough. Strong enough to hear that name and not fall apart inside. Strong enough to remember and know that it had not defeated her, that she was more than what had been done to her. Strong enough to not rely on anyone else to make it better.

Trent kept telling her that she had to be strong. The world needed her to be strong, to lead. How could she let him down by showing them all that she was not strong enough, that she had this weakness? That she could crumple when he just wanted her to stand tall and face everything the world threw at them; when he wanted her to conquer everything they would face.

She lowered her hands from her face, they were trembling. She held them out and watched the fingers shake.

“Strong. Gotta be strong. Can’t be weak. Can’t disappoint them all. Gotta be strong.” She repeated the words over and over like a mantra but all it did was make her feel weaker. All it did was make her feel like a failure. All it did was bring her closer to the tears she was trying so hard to avoid.

“What if I’m not strong enough? I wasn’t then. Why should I be now? What if I fail them all and they all turn from me? What if I’m not enough?”

Deep breaths. She needed to take deep breaths and stop listening to that voice inside her. Never listen to that voice.

She wanted to be strong.

She wanted to make them proud. She wanted them to say they were proud of her, that they loved her and they weren’t going anywhere.

But what if she was too broken and weak to deserve that?

“No. You don’t get to take them from me again. You don’t get to take me from me.”

She wouldn’t let the wounds reopen. She would accept the pain, endure it until it lessened and she was strong again. It would be like any injury she took on set. You just kept going until you were done. She would keep going and no one would know that she was weak. No one would know that she was hurting.

No one would be disappointed in her.

She left the room and plastered a smile on her face, she was an actress after all. “Okay, who’s ready for dinner?”